Lull

Dark cloud
but no guilt therein
Only lulling precipitate
clinging to a precipice
waiting to be absolved

Esther Rantzen

Haunched like a back-break piston
Flying through a viscid plume
Billow'd from a crone's cigar
Wailing triumphant "Here is where.
Let no one say I wasn't a gracious chap"

Esther, eyes ablazing
Swoops upon a mousey hound
Gnarled head sits high in fist
But the body limp furred sacking
"I know what has feasted" she crows

And a great she-wolf seeps out
From dark Gretel forests,
Squired by Waterbabies,
Porcelain in quietus.
Sneered smile creeps from
Punctured lips

And As For Love?

"Ice-cream with coconut mushrooms",
"In driving rain to Windsor",
"Your head on my lap so gently"
What do these things mean?"
He said

a leading question.

" " I replied

He said he felt it. He knew it. He had it in his arms.
I said: " "

I took of your flesh and drank all your tea
but I don't feel it

Guilt surges. I never intended not to love you.

I talk of it as if I knew it well:
I, this cold
I, this warm
this void,
this blossom
too jaded,
impure
I, listless melancholic,
and in wanting:
talk as if I had it

Pysanka

Who is asking?
I'm not here

Barren as a pysanka
with all it's early promise
hunted by a serpent
and found wanting

Still quite hollow
If you tap me

Weird Dreams Part II

So I'm lying on this bed, right. Surrounded by photographers and agents and hangers-on. Because that's what I do, like. Being Gisele and that.

Through the window I see two dogs prowling. Rabid grey hounds, eyeing me up hungrily. I don't understand why, it's not like I'd make a very meaty meal. Suddenly everyone has left and I'm half-naked and windowless. The dogs make a run at me, snarling, I can see them baying for my blood, I can actually see it in their eyes, yeah? So I sprint out the door, sweat beading on me and stand out in the street. I can tell I'm their rabbit , but I stand still a while, terrified beyond reason, as the black one with the torn ear steps near.

Fuck. Now I'm swiping, battering with. What's this? The cardboard innards of a toilet roll? I kill one. It drops to my feet, the blood spurting-out, flowing and curling round my bare toes.

I'm running. Being pursued, feeling jaws clenching and nipping at my ankles I turn and furiously stab at the other one. I'm hitting his head hard, I hear his skull crack. In terror I turn a corner and grapple my way up a hill. I'm standing in the street in what looks like the Desperate Housewives set and noticing specks of dog's blood staining my slip, pesky stains.

A limping beast rounds the corner. It's snout is hanging off, it's scarred carcass shows the wounds of battle. I could have left it there. Walked away.

But I run back and kill it, smash it apart with the cardboard tube, leave a corpse in my wake.

Mess is decadent for a while, at least
Then irksome, troublesome and woeful thereafter

So

I am so bored of you
so wrecked of another
so drastically planning
my escape

riding one great wave yet tossed
so silently into the unformed sand
marking its caress with scars and purple prints
a lesson

I have two more this week:
one a gaping burn from the oven tray
another half moon sits in the crux of an arm

the second was immaculate
conceived unknowing
half smiling but too wide by half again

I have fallen
it is more real than anything so far encountered
more true than anything they give me
a part of me unlike any other

Tight

I give you too little of myself,
that much is plain.
And as you tell me for the umpteenth time
That expression is not nine tenths of the law
And that I will not be charged on account of a giddy heart,
I nod.
And smile.
Although I have every and no idea what I am agreeing with.

Now come on.
I expect you imagine things will change.
But I hold fast.
These troops won't be mustered, you see,
They'll sit in their barracks playing Gin.
Not venturing a foot into new territory,
In hiding from an inevitable defeat.
And yes it is, and whether you are or are not, it will be.

amalgamation

There are parts of you that take me back
And see me stand in those shoes again
To taste the ice poured from the lips
Of him, or him, and him

There is some heat in me, darling
My left breast chokes and splutters
The little engine that couldn't
Exhales the pressure, a tear assumes the position

I see so much of them in you
Where once warmth burst forth
Now Cheshire smiles, tip of the hat, sex in the eyes
Now damaged, now cold, thou art, your heart.

Weird Dreams Part I

The sun is rising , the smell of summer wafts as the heat conducts itself most tirelessly./ Of heat upon decking of blinding white plastic, of suncream and salt and sand and spice.

The po-faced one says "you will have to throw them from here," and here, we do./ Silks and satins balooning like jellyfish from great heights.

"and now you had better wash them, see as Martha does" although we don't know why/ but out step we on our pretty-little toes to save us from the sun-beat boards

from the dock with a yard of wood stirring, we gather our clothes on the sea-bed/ a circular rug breaks free and has to be recovered, some horrid beast in raggedy reds and blues

I had rather it would leave. Quite how this is getting anything clean no one dares ask/ but we mangle and we place the clothes upon ourselves and we walk to the rehearsal.

There are many faces, I walk alone in procession, bearing gifts, catching eyes. /That one there, I foiled her plan. She was to have made a fool of me. Was it me?

Or was it the stern-faced one who barked? No matter. No matter./ Still she scowls and is gone, into a sea of android women with moon faces.

The booth, the group, is waiting. I scurry and take my place amongst their chatter./ We drink, throwing our heads back lewdly, as the pearls are placed and the coal-dust lines our eyes.

Something is placed around my neck, I lean forward to have it clasped but I am jolted back/ The sudden silence of the room deafens. Begging now, to be let loose, but I am strung pearls.

I can't breathe. No really, I can't breathe. And I don't know if I am quite dreaming./ In front of the crowds she drags me, limp, releasing me in a room, to the side.

Let off, I stab the wide, blank face behind. The one who tried to make a fool has succeeded/ and is sitting straight, her spectacles resting upon a sliver of a nose.

"I'm suing you for GBH" I croak in a voice which is not mine and run into the lobby./ "Why didn't you stop her?" I rasp to a chorus of shrugs.

The sensible mistress, for I assume that is her, steps forward/ "You see dear girl, noone likes you, we just don't like you"

The crowd murmurs in accession, giggling churlishly in places./I cry.

I wake bolt upright, my heart thumps beneath my breast and my throat pains me.

In dire need of excitement

'when it rains, it pours'
except this time it didn't
against my better wishes
the roof didn't fall through
the rain didn't dampen my duvet
but the bed was covered in hail
which was some small consolation

I am bound
face down, a pillow of pine.

blinded, I am not meant to see, but
through the very corner of my eye
I stare at the flickering,
the legacy of the draft through the window
where the candles have basked and faltered
and left such hollows and ridges for me

for others.
how many have eyed this scene?

flashback

This is the last time I saw you.
The first time I really saw you,
beckoning from the long-grass.
I knew, I knew everything.
This is where I take my leave. Soon.

I could never tell you then
That I had seen the snake with shedded skin
Come ever so sharply into focus in the forefront
It had had your eyes, your mouth
And from those serpent lips, her name upon it's tongue.

Later as we fucked
I begged for destruction
For it was the only real thing you had given me
I turned and shut my head in the pillows,
so you wouldn't see the saline welling.

'Come now, I'm ruined', I say to myself.
A shrug and I face away, holding your sweaty hand in mine
but I don't clasp it any more, do you notice?

Later still, Lying still, to the wall, to the barrels, blinded,
Letting your gentle snores
Mask my laboured breathing.
I didn't sleep that night,
I was working up the courage to walk out

Such elaborate games I played for myself alone
That you did not know was that you did not win
I swallowed so many keys that day
And locked so many doors
That I may not let another in

crashing

i can't hear you if you're calling
there's a whispering fog stalling
quiet footsteps in the hall and
crashing waves upon the sand